7 Minute Security
Hey friends! Today’s episode has a new-to-me toy up front and some podcast housekeeping on the back half – all recorded with a raging case of the anxious parent giggidies, because my son Atticus had a big audition and I was minutes away from finding out whether we were doing tears of joy or tears of sadness. Baby’s first Cloudflare Tunnel Not a sponsor, not an ad – just a thing I’d heard about for years and finally had a reason to use. Here’s what we get into: The problem that sent me down this road: I wanted push-button status pages for clients that pull from one source...
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Hey friends! Today’s episode is a two-parter: some security stuff up front, and then a big ol’ personal celebration on the back half. If you’re strictly here for the security bits, I love you and you’re free to bail after the first half. If you’re here for both, God bless you. Part 1: Kicking the tires on Insight Recon What it is: is an Active Directory security assessment tool out of Heath Adams’ new venture, . I signed up for early access a while back, finally got a login, and took it for a spin this week in my lab. Not a sponsor, not an ad — just a...
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Hey friends! Today’s episode comes to you from a parking lot in the rain, with a mint hot cocoa in hand and your host absolutely dragging his butt (D-R-A-G-G-I-N-G, not D-R-A-G-O-N – I’ve never seen a dragon’s butt and can’t speak to how mine compares). I’ve had a bunch of internals back to back lately and I’m basically a drooling dog who found a frisbee and refuses to put it down. Sleep be darned. So instead of walking through one test start to finish, I want to share a few things that have helped me claw out a foothold in environments that are otherwise really locked...
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Hey friends! Welcome back to another Tales of Pentest Pwnage — my favorite mini-series where I share the good, the bad, and the “why didn’t I check THAT first?!” moments from real-world engagements. Today’s story has a little bit of everything: a legit path to domain admin, some late-night rabbit holes, a lesson in humility, and a villain you’ve definitely met before. (Spoiler: it’s DNS.) A couple of quick plugs before we dive in: Private GOAD training is going strong! — We just wrapped a 3-day private session (7 students — that’s max capacity!) of our Active...
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Hey friends! Fair warning: today’s episode is a bit of an emotional rollercoaster — we’ve got a big security win, some honest lab feedback, and a very personal share about my dad’s funeral. Buckle up. certified, baby! — I’m officially a , courtesy of the folks at . It’s been a long time coming (I originally signed up for the live version and fell off after missing a couple Saturdays), but I came back for the self-paced 30-day version and finally finished the job. The lab experience — the good: — ~25 objectives, a solid lab guide, and a really fun...
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Hey friends! Still your grieving pal over here, but also your swarming friend and Protecting My Network Edge host — because this week I’ve been tinkering with something called and I’ve got my diapers on regarding it, but I really, really like what I see so far. Then, fair warning, I flip on the tangent light and verbally barf up some personal stuff at the end. I’ll make the hand-off super clear, so if you want your free security podcast to do exactly what you want and nothing else — totally fair, and you won’t offend me by hopping off. Here’s what we cover: ...
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Hey friends! Still your grieving pal over here, but also your happy hacking host — because today we’re diving into baby’s first ! (Yes, I’m probably pronouncing that wrong. Yes, I’m going to keep saying it anyway.) Quick housekeeping: A few days ago I published a mini-series episode from our series, where I shared the news that my dad passed away last Friday. So many of you reached out with condolences — thank you from the bottom of my heart. I’ll share a little life update at the end of this episode. But first — Dracarys! I didn’t know it existed until...
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Hey friends! This is a tough one to write. My dad passed away on Friday, and instead of the hacker-y tech episode I had planned, I pivoted to something more personal — another installment of our “Securing Your Family During and After a Disaster” series. I talk pretty raw and transparently today about loss, grief, and the practical stuff that makes a hard situation just a little less hard. Fair warning: it’s about death and dying, so if that’s not where your head is today, it’s totally okay to duck out – we’ll catch you next week. Here’s what I cover: My dad’s last...
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Hello friends! It’s been over a year since we did a dedicated mental health episode, so today I’m doing a big catch-up and running through my 7-point plan for being a more mentally secure me. None of this is professional medical advice (I am most definitely not a doctor or therapist — well, actually, I am in therapy, but that’s tip #5), so take what’s useful and leave what isn’t. Terms and conditions apply. Here’s my current mental health toolkit: Drink a ton of water — I try to chug a full Yeti thermos before my morning mint hot cocoa, then keep it going...
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Hello friends! I’ve been on a bit of an AI agent journey lately, and today I’m sharing my experience ditching OpenClaw and going all-in on — a self-hosted AI agent built by . A sold me on it, I wiped my Mac Mini (again), and baby’s first Hermes adventure began! Here’s what we get into today: Why I left OpenClaw — After getting the Mac Mini set up, OpenClaw left me feeling pretty meh: burning through API requests, random mid-conversation shutdowns, and a marketplace where the top listings were flagged as “potentially malicious.” Hard pass....
info_outlineHey friends! Today’s episode has a new-to-me toy up front and some podcast housekeeping on the back half – all recorded with a raging case of the anxious parent giggidies, because my son Atticus had a big audition and I was minutes away from finding out whether we were doing tears of joy or tears of sadness.
Baby’s first Cloudflare Tunnel
Not a sponsor, not an ad – just a thing I’d heard about for years and finally had a reason to use. Here’s what we get into:
- The problem that sent me down this road: I wanted push-button status pages for clients that pull from one source of truth – not just “is the box up,” but actual narrative on where a project is at
- Why the off-the-shelf status page tools weren’t the right shape, and why “just stick it on a web server” was a non-starter for a scraper-and-AI-slop-crawler internet
- The auth paths I tried and abandoned before Cloudflare Tunnels entered the chat
- How Cloudflare Access one-time PINs put a guard out front – and what happens when fartface@meowmix.com tries to log in
- My Chick-fil-A-order-tracker dreams for multi-phase assessments, and why I think it could kill a bunch of clogged-up email threads
- Why the code isn’t public yet (it’s public-facing infrastructure I haven’t hardened, and I’ve got hunches about where the holes are) – but reach out if you want to build something similar and I’m happy to share privately
- Where tunnels fit generally: when something genuinely needs to be reachable, but you’d rather not hand it a public IP or expose RDP to the whole internet. It doesn’t replace Twingate for me, but it fills a different slot nicely
- Bonus tangent: why Claude has become my long-drive road companion, and five enlightening minutes I spent learning how water towers work
Housekeeping: a refreshed jingle and a brand new bumper
- A quick history of the 7MS jingle – from just me and an acoustic guitar, to a Fiverr band, to now
- Why “security is hard, so let’s assume we’re probably going to get pwned by noon” has aged frighteningly well (see also: AI agents teaching each other to find previously unknown vulns)
- Meet Jacob Davis, the guitar teacher the algorithm dropped in my lap, who recorded a gorgeous all-strings arrangement of the jingle and about 45 seconds of fingerpicking diddly goodness for our new outro bumper. Stick around to the end and give it a listen – and if you’re in the market for internet guitar lessons, he rules
And over on 7MinSec.club this week
- I show off VoiceInk, a private, local voice dictation utility for Mac that Paul the Unstoppable turned me on to. Lifetime license, no subscription, and it does a great job on live dictation or audio files you feed it. Catch the TuesdayTOOLSday over at 7MinSec.club
Thanks for listening – to the security stuff, the tangents, or both. Come find us at 7MinSec.com, subscribe (free or paid) over at 7MinSec.club, and dig through our notes at 7MinSec.wiki. God bless you, and have a great week!